Karma Circle 02: The Changeling
by Dibsthe1
Summary: Dib becomes convinced that he is actually the offspring of babyswitching trolls, and tries to return to his rightful family.
1. Appetizer

I don't own Invader Zim. And I sure don't own the concept of karma.

**First of all, I must say that I was most gratified by the reaction to Karma Circle 01. My deepest thanks to everybody who read and/or reviewed. Just in case the reviewers decided to be kind, I made sure to have a lighter nearby, so I did get to enjoy a barbecued birthday supper after all. And now for Karma Circle 02, which thejennamonster so kindly beta read... **

_Hello and welcome to the Karma Café! I am Dibsthe1 and I'll be your server this evening! Smoking or non-smoking? And please be aware that it's the "Smoking" section because we just put out the fire!_

_There you are, a nice window seat! Any place that metes out justice is bound to be kind of rough around the edges, so I hope you won't mind if some of the language gets kinda, uh, salty? Our special this evening is the surf and turf: equal parts of retribution and restitution! No, not many places do serve it, which makes it rare! Shame about it being rare... 'cause a story needs balance... just like a meal, you might say!_

_So here's a nice big basket of bread and a glass of water, and let's get you something to sharpen up your appetite... _

**The Changeling**

Chapter One: Appetizer

Dib sat back on his bed, sniffling just a little. His fingers traced carefully along the warped and dented frames of his glasses, carefully pressing them back to their correct shape.

Sometimes, Dib caught himself wishing these beatings were coming from his father instead. It probably wouldn't hurt much more, and THEN someone would finally take the abuse of a ten year old boy seriously enough to bother intervening!

However, Professor Membrane was usually away in his lab somewhere discovering something that the world apparently needed even more than his kids needed a father; occasionally he managed to drop in now and then for a hurried dinner at some restaurant or other. When he spoke of the home situation at all he said only, "It's good to see you two getting along" and treated Gaz like some kind of fragile little slip of a creature in constant danger of being beaten up herself if Dib didn't "watch out" for her.

As it was, anyone finding out that his SISTER had beaten him up first laughed in his face and called him a wimp, and then in the next breath tried to claim she had "guts." If he was such a wimp, how much "guts" would anyone need to beat him up... and if she had all that much "guts," then what need did she have to pick on someone forbidden to hit her back?

Dib put his glasses on to see how straight they were, and found that at least one lens had a smear of blood. He took out his chamois and wiped it away before it could dry onto to the glass.

Boys were always expected to be able to defend themselves... yet they were never supposed to hit girls. So what on earth was a boy to do when a girl was beating him up?

_(A/N) How is everything here? Yes, it's supposed to be bitter and tough; that way the main course will taste so much better! Wink! Trust me!_

Every single time Dib did or said anything when he was in the same room with her, Gaz griped that it "bugged" her, and beat... or at the very least threatened to beat... the daylights out of him for next to nothing.

Whenever only enough cereal remained to fill one bowl, Gaz intimidated him into backing down by hysterically accusing him of thinking he owned all the cereal... as if she herself wasn't acting as if she owned it all! Whenever there was plenty of cereal but only enough milk for one bowl, it was invariably Dib who took his cereal with water.

Any time Dib tried to play his CDs, Gaz threatened him with bodily harm if she could hear them at all. Gaz... the very same person who night after night cranked the new game console system in her room and played it at maximum volume without a second thought about keeping Dib, tossing and turning in his room just across the hall, awake well into the small hours.

Just minutes earlier, Dib had been watching a TV special on UFOs. It was extraordinarily well-researched; even with his vast body of knowledge on the subject, Dib was astonished by how much he was learning from this program. Right before the undercover reporter with the hidden camera would have actually entered the secret storage room in Area 51, Gaz reached right across his face to change the channel... and when he had protested, snapped at him that what he was watching was just stupid junk anyway.

"Well Gaz I was still watching it first and - !"

Gaz whirled on him, bristling with self-righteous indignation. "I told you not to bug me during My Show, Dib. You... will... pay!"

Hypocrite, that's what she was... a big, fat, stinking... HYPOCRITE! With the hand that wasn't holding his glasses Dib clenched his fist so hard that his fingernails left long red scrapes across his palm. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his eyes shut to hold back the tears. He was beyond sick and tired of living like this.

Finally Dib rubbed his eyes and after a little more work on his glasses, they finally looked clean and straight enough. Upon putting them on, however, Dib immediately realized that they were still twisted in yet another direction. Sighing, he took them off and continued to fix them.

As abused children so often do, Dib now told himself for the thousandth time that he had been switched at birth and that this wasn't his real family.

From his diligent previous research on the supernatural, Dib had learned that supernatural beings quite often exchanged their babies with those of humans when the opportunity presented itself. At first, one look at his father had been enough to crush any such speculations flat; nobody else on the planet could have hair like Dib's except...except his father. Unless, that is, an undiscovered race of supernatural beings sported such hair, and the Professor was unique among humans?

What began long ago as a wish had become something Dib dared to hope, and which by now he was more willing to believe with every passing day. At least the option of someday finding a safer home made his miserable days a little easier to bear.

Once the frames of his glasses were as straight as he could get them, Dib headed for his computer and opened the folder he'd named "Ugly Duckling."

Hunting for pages on this subject to pore over later provided Dib with relief from his misery after these incidents, and by this time the folder was well-stuffed indeed.

Dib hunched over his computer and with a fresh intensity began skimming the files one after the other. The more he read, the more convinced he became that he was indeed a changeling. Inattentive parents were most likely to have their children switched in this manner, and no parent could be much more inattentive than Professor Membrane.

Many superstitions surrounded newborns for the sole purpose of preventing such exchanges. You couldn't let the fire go out in any room where a baby lay who hadn't yet been christened, and you couldn't throw out the first water in which you had washed the newborn baby. You did, however, have to make sure that some metal object, like one of those old-fashioned safety pins, was fastened to the infant's diapers at all times. Even if anyone had in fact mentioned any of these precautions to the Professor, it was easy to guess what his reaction would have been...

"That's not Real Science!"

By this point Dib, had narrowed down his list of baby-stealing groups down to one. His real parents were most likely trolls. The most noticeable feature of trolls was their hair, sticking up sharply from their heads as it did...

Dib set his chin and nodded. He had to be a troll child. He certainly didn't feel at home in this family, or even this neighborhood. He was an unhappy misfit, without friends and practically without relatives. He and Gaz couldn't possibly be more different... and as he invariably got the worst of it, he was undoubtedly the one out of his dimension. His inhuman origins would most certainly explain his interest in the supernatural.

Dib now wondered why, having crossed the border between hope and belief a long time ago, he kept hesitating to pursue this possibility. Then he remembered.

That his own parents had left him with another family this way was the ultimate proof that they hadn't wanted him, and Dib was in no hurry to face the risk that they wouldn't want him back now either. As he weighed both sides of the question, Dib ran a finger over the edge of his glasses... the metal still had a bend in it that he hadn't been able to work out... and decided that this was a chance he would just have to take.

Dib copied every file with TRL in the title and pasted them into a new folder. Once more he carefully read this story, that legend, those folklore research papers. The most commonly used way to make the trolls return and demand their own child back was to threaten to kill or otherwise abuse the troll child. When he re-read this part, Dib almost changed his mind. Would he really have to get Gaz to abuse him even worse than she already was? Considering what she'd just done, he would have to bait her into nearly murdering him to get his real parents to show up... if indeed they would want...

Dib turned away from his computer to let his gaze drift out the window. He gritted his teeth, tapping his fingers nervously on his mouse. Sometimes the only way out of a problem is the way through... and hadn't he been saying for a long time now that he would do literally anything to leave this unending torment?

With a sigh, Dib stood up. Methodically he went through his room, packing a few changes of clothes, his core books, and various other things he couldn't leave behind. He left most of his posters, taking only his current research on his most urgent fixation, Zim.

"It's not like I'm going to miss a lot of friends. I may even make new ones once I get back with my own kind."

Dib steeled himself for the coming ordeal, then carried his suitcase downstairs. He placed it beside the door where he could pick it up as he left for the last time. He then forced himself to walk up to the couch.

Having turned off the television, Gaz now sat back on the couch playing her beeping, shrieking GameSlave. Cautiously Dib sat down next to her; carefully he reached for the remote. This time it wouldn't matter what show was on. Dib clicked on the television, loud enough that he could actually hear it this time.

Gaz turned a baleful eye on him. "That's bugging me. Turn it down if you know what's good for you, idiot."

Dib closed his eyes and drew a deep breath... before holding a trembling thumb down on the volume button with the plus sign on it.

X X X X X X

Dib pressed a blood streaked face cloth around his puffy lip...carefully, because his hand was hurting too. In fact, not much of him didn't hurt. Not only had his plan not worked, he had only gotten beaten up yet again and worse than ever this time. So complete was his humiliation that Dib couldn't bring himself to meet his own eyes in the mirror.

This was it. The one and only slim hope that had kept him going for years now lay in shreds. After abandoning him with a beast like this in the first place, his real parents now weren't even going to bother coming back to save him!

Dib's breath was now coming in quick gasps. He couldn't face one more day of living like this. All the news stories he'd ever heard about people living under domestic abuse who'd finally snapped and killed their torturers now came drifting back one by one to the front of his mind.

Up until now, Dib had never really cursed, cursed as in saying something worse than "hell" or "damn." But at this moment, an unprecedented craving to vent forced him to grope for words to adequately voice his bitter disappointment and frustrated agony. He wouldn't seriously do such a thing, of course, but in the heat of the moment, he most certainly did mean the words.

"'Amn 'uckin' 'itch... as soon as she's 'sleep I'm cuttin' her t'roat!"

End of the First Course

_How was that? After all that you must be very thirsty indeed for some justice, so for now I'll just clear off your table and refill your glasses; your main course is coming right up! _


	2. Main Course

I don't own Invader Zim. And I sure don't own the concept of karma.

Chapter Two: Main Course

_Okay, here comes your main course... the very thing most places don't bother serving at all, strangely enough! Enjoy!_

No sooner had the words left his lips than Dib heard the front door open. Two pairs of feet stepped into the living room. Who was his father bringing home now? A matched set of international scientists to whom he could introduce Dib as "my poor, insane son," no doubt.

Dib didn't know if Gaz was still in the living room or if she had stomped off to her own bedroom. Either way she would be sure to get angry all over again if she had to set her precious game aside long enough to answer the door.

He was expecting highly educated scientists, but the approaching voices didn't sound too well educated; indeed, they sounded like nothing human he'd ever heard. The closest thing to human he could compare it to was Gaz when she was working herself up into one of her more unbridled rages.

"... got no choice 'bout it now; 'e CALLED us... "

"... Are ya happy now? Are ya? I toldja this kid was smart enough ta figger it out!"

"Dunno 'bout you, but I couldn' take one more minute wit' 'er'. I jus' 'ope this fam'ly's put SOME manners into - "

"I SAID any 'ome but this one. I SAID keep lookin.' I SAID 'e'll know somethin's up... "

"Oh, an' 'xactly how much more was YOU pr'pared to go on lookin' for a BEDDER 'ome? Mebbe you LIKED it when she - "

"Shut up, Grunt! "Ere 'e comes."

"When we get 'ome you will PAY!"

As Dib came down the stairs, the two arguing voices rose louder and louder until they silenced abruptly when Dib finally stood face to face with the intruders. The boy stopped in his tracks, staring in shock at two creatures the like of which he had never seen before.

They were horrible monsters! The one which he supposed was the female had long purple hair standing up in three brief little shocks over a bulging forehead and squinty little bloodshot eyes. The other, presumably the male, had shaped his equally purple hair into huge ram-like horns curling up from either side of his head. Their clothes resembled burlap bags and they had threaded unnervingly authentic-looking human skulls on the chains dangling from their necks. Somewhere beneath all that body hair, their flesh might have been human-colored, and against their large, chunky bodies, their wiry limbs looked very out of place. Their facial expressions suggested that they hadn't seen a single thing that met with their approval for several decades and that they were irritated enough at the entire universe to disembowel something.

In a voice that seemed to be coming through a gravel pit, what looked to be the female snapped, "Well? Where is she?"

Second thoughts about the whole thing now seized Dib. It was Dib who had been expecting to move, collected his belongings, and called these beings with the aim of going somewhere; he wasn't too sure about allowing something to happen that he hadn't planned for. Dib stepped forward and cleared his throat.

"Thank you... folks... for coming all this way, but..." Dib held out both hands parallel with the ground and abruptly made an outward sweeping motion with them. "... No deal. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you." He indicated the door behind them, still open. "Good bye."

What looked to be the male stepped forward and pushed Dib against the wall. The hand pressed just firmly enough against the boy's clavicle to let him know that the troll could effortlessly inflict paralyzing pain if so it chose. While this was far from the first time Dib was on the receiving end of such immense power, what was new was the impression that this power was held firmly under control. Here was a being that mellowed its physical strength with an equal amount of mental strength, a being which knew exactly when it was appropriate to use such power and when it was appropriate to restrain it.

The troll's face kept creasing and darkening to a truly unbelievable degree until it went from looking like a gargoyle with indigestion to a very old rubbery black mushroom rotting in a grimy corner for several weeks, and finally to an erupting volcano, a thundercloud and a mushroom cloud. If this is how these beings looked when they were angry, Dib decided that their earlier expressions HAD been the friendly ones.

"This's NOT...'bout what YOU want... no more," the troll growled, sounding as though he was still speaking from deep in a cave somewhere. Oh good God... what had Dib done? What had he called forth?

"Roar!" called the female, in a voice that no living creature could dare disobey. "C'mere."

Just as Dib was just about to protest that calling Gaz had never worked in all the years he had known her, the subject herself appeared in the doorway, swaggering toward Dib with an expression suggested that she was about to tear into Dib all over again for daring to call her from her game. The expression which immediately replaced it, however, was one which Dib would see on Gaz's face only this one time; it was part recognition and part startle.

"Yes, thas 'er! Thas our baby!"

"Go an' pack your bags, Snarl," said Gaz's real mother. Her real name was unpronounceable by human lips. "Yer comin' 'ome."

"Home," breathed Gaz, or Snarl as she had originally been named, as if a small and deeply buried part of her had known it all along. Not even Gaz could very well tell these beings she didn't feel like going anywhere, or to shove it, or to sit down and wait until she was good and ready or she would give them the dooming of a lifetime, or any of her other usual retorts. She left the room with a dutiful, compliant air that Dib never would have believed had he not seen.

While waiting for their "baby," the trolls began berating Dib for the threat that had escaped him earlier.

"You MONSTER... MONSTER!"

"How dare you use such words talkin' 'bout our BABY!"

"Th' idear... th' IDEAR! I sh'ld cut YOUR throat when YOU fall 'sleep!"

After some of the things Gaz used to say to him this was merely a tut-tutting, so Dib was able to wait it out patiently enough until she returned. Now she wore her coat with her ever-present GameSlave sticking out of her pocket, carrying a suitcase in one hand and in the other a box of equal size with the word "Games" on one side. Dib wondered how much video game playing Gaz's new parents would allow her at one sitting.

He much preferred that his last image of Gaz be a civil one, to prevent him from being haunted by memories of the innumerable horrors she had inflicted on him. "Well... good-bye, Gaz," he said, holding out his hand to shake hers, automatically adding, "Do you want me to help you carry anything?"

Happy though she was at being back with her own family, Gaz bitterly resented that it should be the result of somebody else's initiative. Before brushing past Dib, she paused just long enough to drag down over him her most withering glare ever, and who knows what more she would have done had her real parents not been standing right nearby. As it was, Gaz settled for narrowing her eyes to slits to channel undiluted hatred at him while she selected a few words hateful enough grit out at him through clenched teeth. "Die, IDIOT. Slowly and painfully. SOON."

Inside Dib smiled with relief. Not a single doubt now remained that he was indeed doing the right thing.

As she turned her back and walked away from him for the last time, Dib thought that she looked like a bored and very spoiled child heading back to skool after missing far too many days in a row because of a major blizzard. Already she was complaining; "Now get me out of this dump and - "

"You won' take that tone wit' ME young lady!" The female's husky bark silenced her immediately.

The male was still ranting at Dib. "... how DAREYAA!"

"I had no idear this was such a unfit 'ome f'r our poor li'l infan'!" wailed the mother. "We're lucky she's still 'LIVE! You will pay when we get 'ome, Growl... YOU... WILL... PAY!"

The father troll flicked one last rebuke at Dib. "We never, no, not never talked like that 'bout YOUR sister!"

As the newly reunited family turned and headed for the door, they left room for someone to step forward... someone who'd been standing behind the huge creatures so that Dib couldn't see her until now. It was a girl.

A human girl.

End of Second Course

_(A/N) See? That's what I was talking about! A good even-handed balance! And now to end it on an even sweeter note... _


	3. Just Desserts!

I don't own Invader Zim. And I sure don't own the concept of karma.

Chapter Three: Just Desserts

This human girl was about Gaz's age, but her wide, curious amber eyes, high forehead and excited, cheerful smile made she look quite a bit more like Dib. Her black hair was even graced with a scythe very similar to his, just longer and curlier.

She wore a dark grey trench coat with backpack straps around the shoulders, and with both hands she clutched the handle of a suitcase. Quickly she freed one hand to hold out to shake Dib's. "Hi! I'm Dag." A look of pain crossed her face as she noticed Dib's lip. "Ohhh! You're hurt!"

"No, it's okay," Dib started to say. Then he realized... he'd never before had a sister who would say that to him...

Two pairs of eyebrows leaped in the universal human gesture of recognition; she was home and they both knew it! They ran to each other, both talking excitedly at once.

"Wow so YOU'RE my sister... !"

"I knew I didn't belong with them... !"

"Oh MAN this is gonna be GREAT... !"

"I knew I had to be a changeling! I just knew it!"

"First we gotta - "

"I didn't know where to find out for sure and you just beat me to it!"

"Well, I am a year older, so I'd know a bit more."

Dag started to look downcast, but Dib immediately caught himself.

"But that doesn't mean you're not smart! Next year you'll be a year older and you'll know as much as I do now!"

Dag looked happy again.

"But I'll still be a year older than you so I'll have learned still more." At that she started to look downcast once more.

"And then you can learn some more again." Dib knew when to stop.

A relaxed lull in the conversation followed. Even as he continued soaking up the wonderful fact that he'd found his real sister, an uneasy thought began pushing its way into Dib's mind. To shake it, he reminded Dag that it was getting close to suppertime, and this time dared to suggest something he himself enjoyed. "Well, this is a special occasion, so we can order out for Chinese! How's that?"

"What does that taste like?" Dag asked.

Dib's eyes flew open. "Who's never had Chinese? It's the best food in the world!"

"Me, that's who! Troll food is horrible... it isn't even food!"

In his entire life, Dib would never learn as much about troll eating habits and dining customs as he learned in the next twenty minutes while they waited for their order to arrive.

"... and that's how I survived. Say, when do Mom and Dad come home? I want to meet them!"

Dib's sunny expression suddenly became more subdued. "I'm sorry, we... she's... we don't have one. Just never mention it to Dad, okay? He'll be along later... much later."

When the food finally arrived, Dag carried the warm, fragrant parcels to the kitchen while Dib paid the driver. Even though he knew everybody wasn't Gaz, Dib was still pleasantly startled to join Dag in the kitchen to see that she was waiting patiently for him to join her, with the food untouched in the middle of the table.

Seeing Dib's puzzled look, Dag explained, "Oh, in troll families, the youngest eat last."

"We aren't trolls," Dib pointed out, smiling smugly as he tore the wrapping away, as if from a big Christmas present. "We eat together here!"

Dib raised his eyebrows in inquiry as Dag took her first taste. She nodded with great enthusiasm and reached for more. Together they enjoyed the meal, until Dag asked if Dib would want any more before reaching for a second helping. He shook his head and held out his hand to invite her to take all she wanted. Was there no end to the surprises? Never before had even sweet and sour chicken or chicken chow mein tasted so good.

When the Professor appeared on the hover screen as they were finishing up their supper, right away he noticed something different about his "sane child."

"I know! You got your hair cut!" He leaned in closer to the screen as if he was right in the room with them, and held up his hand over his mouth as if the microphone wasn't allowing Dib to hear every word he said. "Just try not to become as insane as your brother!"

Dib and Dag barely managed to hold back their wild hoots and shrieks of laughter until the Professor's image winked off the hover screen.

When Dib went to wash the glasses and throw out the food containers, Dag offered to help, much to his astonishment. She had been required to help with light housework for as long as she had been able to do so, and Dib couldn't suppress a smirk as he thought about what the scene in the trolls' house must be right about now.

As they wiped down the table together, Dib explained all about her new father. "And he is THE world famous Professor Membrane! You'll get to meet him next year when we go out to supper. He's very busy, so he isn't around much. But at least now it won't be as... as lonely around here."

Dib just was about to ask Dag when she had to be home, but he caught himself and slapped his forehead... she WAS home! "Hey, you're going to need a room!" He led his new sister up the stairs and after just a moment of lingering uneasiness, opened the door to Gaz's newly vacated bedroom.

Dib stepped inside to see what needed to be done to prepare the room for his new sister, but one brief glance around made him shudder to his marrow. No wonder Gaz wasn't fit to live with; no one who deliberately fed herself such a constant diet of bitterness and negativity would be.

A poster on the back of the door insisted, "Outside is stupid... " A dart board on the wall was studded not with darts, but with throwing knives and shurikens. A globe badly dented from repeated kicks lay in the wastepaper basket. Bumper stickers all over the walls proclaimed things like, "There is no gravity, the world sucks," "Don't hit people with glasses... hit them with lead pipes and nail studded baseball bats," "I don't have an attitude, you really are dirt under my nails," "Burn in hell and rot there," and "I'm not deaf, I'm plotting your murder."

Together Dib and Dag stripped the room of its nihilistic decor, throwing the discards into a huge box Dib placed outside in the hall. When the walls were bare and cheerful again, they dressed the bed with fresh bedsheets Dib brought from the linen closet. "You can use these for now. We'll have Dad buy more for you later on." He took a deep breath. "Now what would you like, uh, what do you want to put up on your walls?"

Dag hesitated to reply, giving Dib a chance to see how she would react to his interests.

"C'mon and see if you want some of my posters; my room's right across the hall!"

"So we can visit to plan stuff together all the time!" exclaimed Dag.

Gaz would never have said anything like this. Dib allowed hope to kindle that Dag did even a few of the same things he did... but caught himself right away.

Whenever Dib had tried to share something cool, all he had ever received in return for his efforts was scorn and ridicule. No matter how nice she seemed, Dag had probably picked up at least some Gaz-like mannerisms from her troll foster parents; surely the other shoe would fall any minute now. Dib was torn; while he wanted to share everything with his new sister, he was in no hurry to jeopardize such a good thing. He had had enough of coming home from ridicule at skool each day to face yet more ridicule at home.

Dib leaned into his room ahead of Dag to make sure he'd taken down ALL his aliens related stuff. His classmates were even less tolerant of his newest interest and most urgent mission than they'd been even of the ghosts and sasquatches. How would Dag react? As much as he longed to ask, Dib didn't dare.

Was she treating him this nicely because she didn't know he was into aliens? Would she start treating him like everybody else did once she found out?

Finally Dib motioned for Dag to follow him into his room and invited her to pick anything she liked that he'd left on his walls.

She chose a poster of a werewolf and a photo of the night sky, but after that she kept roving her eyes over the walls as if she'd hoped to see something else but wasn't finding it. Despite Dib's invitations to take more, she shook her head a bit sadly and said, "No thanks."

_Sorry,_ thought Dib, _I don't have any unicorns or movie stars or Footprints posters or whatever else it is that everybody else likes. _

They returned to Dag's room, where Dib helped her put the posters up by telling her when they were straight before she pushed in the thumbtacks. By now they couldn't think of anything more the room needed right away. Dag sighed happily, then turned to Dib. "So... what do you like to do?"

Dib hesitated. Here was where he could lose all that he had just gained. If he just mentioned all the usual stuff, he'd dodge the risk of being rejected as "weird" but he would end up doing just boring things with his cool new sister. If he went out on a limb, maybe they could do the really cool things together... maybe... if she didn't make a face and tell him he was "weird." He took a deep breath and began, watching her face closely.

"Oh, all the usual... reading... computers... making stuff. Checking out anything interesting... " Dib hesitated. "... like... like, uh, ghosts... and... and bigfoot." Seeing none of the usual sneering, disgusted reactions, Dib tried the next word, saying it more cautiously still. "Stargazing... "

"Stargazing? Really? Me too! In fact - " Dag caught herself.

After a wary pause, Dib slowly added, "I've got a telescope... and a satellite dish. I use them... sometimes... "

Dag brightened. "have you ever seen any... " She leaned in closer, her voice trailing off for a moment as she looked to one side and then the other as if even here, someone was watching who would laugh if they overheard. " ... you know... any aliens?"

The End

_Finished? What'd you think? _

_Yeah, that's the only time it makes sense to even touch something like that first course... when you can chase it with something that, y'know, tastes even better because you DID eat it!_

_A good story and a good meal both end the same way, eh? With just desserts! Heh heh heh! Oh, the tab's been taken care of; Gaz paid up for her atrocious treatment of Dib! But if you really want to, you can hit the review button and leave a tip! Heh heh heh! _

_Have a great evening and come back soon! Thank you for choosing Karma Café... "We serve everyone right!"_

X X X X X X

**The Karma Circle is once again closed. Thank you and good night. But before you log out completely, won't** **you please see my profile for an important announcement.**


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